Digital Innovation in Incumbent Firm Contexts: A Knowledge Integration Perspective

In the age of digitalization, companies need to adapt their processes, products, and business models to maintain their capability to innovate and thus to ensure their competitiveness. As a result, companies need to renew their existing competencies by integrating new and valuable knowledge from the digital sphere. However, this poses a significant managerial challenge, especially for established companies, as the convergent and generative nature of digital innovation not only makes the process of knowledge integration more dynamic, but also increases the diversity and amount of knowledge that needs to be integrated across organizational boundaries. To shed more light on this challenge and evaluate possible solutions, four studies were conducted and compiled in this cumulative dissertation. These studies provide insights into the unique nature of knowledge integration in the context of digital innovation and advance the understanding of how incumbent firms can address the associated challenges. In particular, the use of boundary resources such as application programming interfaces (APIs) is examined, as they represent a key mechanism for scaling knowledge integration in digital(izing) business ecosystems.